[120] {104} [Byron forwarded this stanza in a letter to Dallas, dated October 14, 1811, and was careful to add, "I think it proper to state to you, that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any _male_ friend" (_Letters_. 1898, ii. 57). The reference is not to Edleston, as Dallas might have guessed, and as Wright (see _Poetical Works_, 1891, p. 17) believed. Again, in a letter to Dallas, dated October 31, 1811 (_ibid_., ii. 65), he sends "a few stanzas," presumably the lines "To Thyrza," which are dated October 31, 1811, and says that "they refer to the death of one to whose name you are a _stranger_, and, consequently, cannot be interested (_sic_) ... They relate to the same person whom I have mentioned in Canto 2nd, and at the conclusion of the poem." It follows from this second statement that we have Byron's authority for connecting stanza ix. with stanzas xcv., xcvi., and, inferentially, his authority for connecting stanzas ix., xcv., xcvi. with the group of "Thyrza" poems. And there our knowledge ends. We must leave the mystery where Byron willed that it should be left. "All that we know is, nothing can be known."] [dw] {105} _Whate'er beside_} } _Futurity's behest_.[§] _Howe'er may be_ } Or seeing thee no more to sink in sullen rest_.--[MS. D.] [§] [See letter to Dallas, October 14, 1811.] [121] {106} [For note on the "Elgin Marbles," see _Introduction to the Curse of Minerva: Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 453-456.] [dx] _The last, the worst dull Robber, who was he?_ _Blush Scotland such a slave thy son could be_-- _England! I joy no child he was of thine:_ _Thy freeborn men revere what once was free,_ _Nor tear the Sculpture from its saddening shrine,_ _Nor bear the spoil away athwart the weeping Brine_.--[MS. D. erased.] [dy] _This be the wittol Picts ignoble boast_.--[MS. D.] _To rive what Goth and Turk, and Time hath spared:_ _Cold and accursed as his native coast_.--[MS. D. erased] [122] ["On the plaster wall of the Chapel of Pandrosos adjoining the Erechtheum, these words have been very deeply cut-- 'Quod non fecerunt Goti, Hoc fecerunt Scoti'" (_Travels in Albania_, 1858, i. 299). M. Darmesteter quotes the original: "mot sur les Barberini" ("Quod non fecere Barbari, Fecere Barberini"). It may be added that Scotchmen are named among the volunteers who joined the Hanoverian mercenaries in the Venetian invasion of Greece in 1686. (See _The Curse of Minerva: Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 463, note 1; Finlay's _Hist. of Greece_, v. 189.)] [dz] {107}